Josh writes:I would like to have a better idea of the kind of skeptic a philosopher who ‘does ethics’ is. But can a moral philosopher afford to be a skeptic? – To be a skeptic is to challenge received certainty—physical reality, wakefulness, other minds, one’s own ability to think for oneself. In general, this leads to a challenge to one’s own mindfulness. Certainties like this are the skeletons of the mind. Without them, the mind collapses—collapses into philosophy. But what does the moral thinker have to be certain about? – The moral law? The existence of a benevolent God? One would almost like to say: we can only be certain of our fallen, instinctively egoistic, nature. That’s certainty in the absence of ethics. – I don’t know. That’s a possible attitude.In ethics, I want to say, there are no certainties. There are only uncertainties. In ethics the freaks are those who are certain, not skeptic. It takes a saint to be certain in ethics (I'm not sure even a Socrates would do). In ethics anyone can be a skeptic.

If to be certain is just to be in a state in which we think we have no cause to doubt (and that's a state in which a great many factors, often quite different from one another, will serve to support a belief that we have no cause to doubt), then being certain in an ethical sense would not amount to the same sort of certainty (or demand the same reasons) that being certain about the roundness of our planet or that human beings have placed men on the moon in the not so recent past or that we remember the things we think we remember would require. So the point would be to look for the KIND of certainty that fits the moral model and not agonize over its failure to look like other sorts of certainty we may have.

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reshef

11/30/2013 04:00:07 pm

Yes. That's what I'm assuming. (I hope I don't come off as agonizing over the failure of ethics to look like other things.)

I think what would be interesting is exploring the different sort of certainty(ies) involved in moral judgment which make such issues work since I think we can make the case that they do work for us. (I try to do that a bit in some pieces I've been working on at the site I mention here ( http://ludwig.squarespace.com/volume-15/2013/10/1/archive-stuart-mirsky.html ) but so far I have probably only been scratching the surface. It's a bit of a challenge, needless to say. But worth trying to get right I think.

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reshef

12/2/2013 09:39:42 pm

- “exploring the different sort of certainty(ies) involved in moral judgment”

- Such globalness is a bit ambitious for my blood. I’m trying to make a local kind of comparison. And it seems to me that there is a sense in which we don’t have certainty in ethics. Unlike with other minds and the external world, moral thinking (at least a kind of moral thinking I’m attracted to) is characterized by a different attitude—one of absence of certainty. Perhaps skepticism is not the word for it. It is more like patience.

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Stuart W. Mirsky

12/2/2013 11:06:47 pm

Yes, certainty is different in the matter of moral questions for sure. Yet we surely must feel certain in some sense. For instance, I'm certain that harming another conscious being without just cause (in self defense, say, or to save another) is wrong. If asked to explain that I'd come up with all sorts of explanations but, in the end, I could not offer a knock down/drag out justification for it. Still, there is a feeling I have about this that simply revolts against the idea of gratuitously harming another. But if that feeling isn't universal, how can we expect to hold others to the same standard? And, if we can't, can we make moral judgments of others at all? If not, can we even rely on such standards to guide our own behavior? This, I think, is where moral issues break down and where your notion of skepticism kicks in. Moral judgments and beliefs have to be grounded in something, no? If not, if they are just about feelings, they cannot be relied on as rational guides for behavior. But being able to reason about moral questions seems to be intrinsic to applying them. That's the real conundrum I think.

j.

12/1/2013 03:43:27 am

i was thinking of cavell's way of thinking of of skepticism and traditional epistemology (i.e. skepticism and theory, skepticism and philosophy) as made in each other's image.

if i think about aristotle in that sense, then he does not seem touched by skepticism (about, somehow, ethics) in a way that mill and kant do. his understanding of, say, the way in which the phronimos will know what to do seems to accommodate human limitations in a healthy way—without their becoming toxic for the whole effort to reflect on human conduct.

but somehow the way theories like kant's and mill's (or successors') seem to polarize the entire field of reflection on morality and of practical activity (as if, did they not do so, we would be lost, ethical life would be unworkable, we could not guide ourselves by thinking about what to do), makes them seem like kinds of (not fully healthy) dogmatist (i.e. opponent to the skeptic).

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Stuart W. Mirsky

12/1/2013 06:46:32 am

Yes, there is a big difference between the way Aristotle addressed ethical concerns and later thinkers like Kant and Mill. They seem to reflect a Western tendency that developed from the influence of Judeo-Christian thinking on the older classical mindset. There is a sense in the later tradition that what is moral, or right to do, is, or at least should be, knowable in a rationally demonstrable way, i.e., we should be able to reason our way to the good and argue for it when others don't see it as we do, etc. But, as you seem to be pointing out (at least if I have you right on this!) there's a sense in which moral valuing (the evaluation of actions qua actions and not just as tools for achieving other things we happen to want) is a wholly practical matter. One shouldn't need to be a clever philosopher to know right from wrong!

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reshef

12/2/2013 10:05:20 pm

J.

I’m trying to get a better sense of your question. What if we said this: ‘Aristotle, Kant, Mill, they were all trying to save a sense of objectivity in ethics, and of moral normativity; they were all worried about the idea that ethics is just a fantasy—that saying of actions, say, that they are morally wrong, or courageous, is all a matter of psychology’? – Would that give us a sense of a form of skepticism in ethics? Is that too obvious?

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j.

12/5/2013 02:56:16 am

fair enough, but it doesn't feel satisfactory to me.

i think the phrase is important: 'do ethics'.

i often have the impression that the needfulness which those who 'do ethics' appeal to, or invoke, is far from earned. it often seems to bear on issues of persuasiveness, of standing (as in, of when and where questions are to be raised), of whether people share enough of a starting point to get down to the business with which 'ethics doers' usually concern themselves with. i suppose traditionally these issues have been connected to the problem of moralism in theorizing about morality, but i think that too is just one way of framing things, probably too automatic by now.

i'm not sure how that could be expressed as a sort of skepticism (maybe about others? about their relation to others?), but it seems as if it might.

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reshef

12/5/2013 08:38:50 pm

I think what you suggest is plausible. I don’t know if the ethics doer will own it though. This is something you’ll have to clarify in a conversation with one of them. And for that you’ll have to somehow persuade them first that there is an issue here to discuss. – Good luck!

j.

12/7/2013 12:02:21 am

perhaps it involves some contrast between three situations/sequences:

you have some kind of problem (uncertainty about what to do, dissatisfaction, conflicting commitments, perplexity in an unfamiliar situation, whatever), see the need to reflect ethically on it, and do so (hopefully in a way that resolves it for you)

someone else induces you to reflection on the basis of what they, but perhaps not you, take to be a problem

you induce someone else to reflection, etc. etc.

i don't know.

Stuart W. Mirsky

12/2/2013 10:45:43 pm

Obivousness isn't fatal. After all the question of whether there is a genuinely moral good to be considered or if it's all a matter of doing whatever we want or can get away with or enforce on others is a very old concern in human thought. Just about all societies have a moral dimension in the way they view human action (the Iks of Africa being, perhaps, the notable exception -- and it's not even certain that they are that!) and there are commonalities (e.g., proscriptions on illicit killing, stealing, lying, cheating) but there are also many differences and many interpretations of the core proscriptions (what counts as illicit killing, theft, stealing) which seem at times to amount to real differences in meaning, too. The problem, it seems to me, in moral inquiry, is to figure out to what extent there are commonalities and if these commonalities reflect some basis that can be argued for. If not, if it's all a matter of circumstance, the society into which we're born or enrolled, and the laws we fear to transgress, then what you seem to be calling moral skepticism (I'd call it nihilism) would seem to be the order of the day. And that's a real problem for moral claims. If ethics is just fantasy as you put it, then anything goes, or anything we can get away with goes. That looks like a societal problem but also a personal one when we try to decide how we should behave ourselves. Can philosophy solve it? I think philosophy can help us to get a handle on this sort of thing but I don't think determining what, if anything, is morally right is itself a philosophical question. If it were, then only philosophers would have the possibility of making morally sound choices and that just doesn't seem right.

What then is the basis, if any, for ascribing moral goodness to others and to their actions? If it's just consistency with some moral laws, what is the basis for believing in one set of "laws" over another and how are we to finesse the obvious differences in standards that do occur across societies?

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Stuart W. Mirsky

12/2/2013 10:50:38 pm

Sorry about the duplicate posting. I think there's something wrong with this site. When I post a reply it reports an error and tells me to "Please try again". When I do that I end up posting twice. If you can fix it by removing the duplicate posts, I'd be obliged. Thanks.

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Reshef

12/3/2013 12:42:59 am

Done!

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reshef

12/3/2013 01:10:24 am

Stuart,

You say: “I'm certain that harming another conscious being without just cause (in self defense, say, or to save another) is wrong.”

- I had a related post about the duty to tell the truth a while ago. (http://reshefagamsegal.weebly.com/1/post/2013/02/february-27th-2013.html) I argued there that even though we have an absolute duty to tell the truth, what this duty comes to is something that is not given to us. And this—to connect it to the present discussion—opens up a hole of uncertainty in the middle of that absolute duty. This is the kind of reason I have for saying that an attitude of certainty in ethics (unlike in other cases, e.g. ones in epistemology) would be meshed with deep absence of certainty.

And I would want to say similar things about your example. You present the idea that harming an innocent person is unjust as a kind of certainty. I don’t want to deny this. But at the same time, I would like to argue, what this certainty commands or instructs in particular cases can be a riddle.

We don’t typically have riddles like that when it comes to other minds and the external world.

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Stuart W. Mirsky

12/3/2013 01:38:25 am

I tend to be uncomfortable with notions of duty. It seems to me that duty is a less basic term than value, i.e., as in it's a good thing to tell the truth (follow a rule of truth telling). But this opens up the possibility that it's only a "good thing" given certain conditions which, if non-existent, the duty will be seen to be abrogated.

I do think, though, that duty is a concept that works like that. We have duties insofar as it's good to recognize and abide by them, but not when it isn't. And real life suggests there are many circumstances in which the notion of duty is just too rigid to make sense either morally or practically. Should we tell the truth to a dying person if it will cause him/her pain? Should we tell the truth to a killer if it reveals the whereabouts of his prey? Should we tell the truth if it jeopardizes our own existence? (On this last, I think moral valuing presents some wiggle room but less so than in the first two examples.)

If a duty is not a given (as you suggest), then isn't it contingent on other factors, such as the goodness, or lack thereof, in abiding by that duty in this or that circumstance? My own view on duties is not very Kantian. It seems to me that they are functions of relationships we enter into and that we have duties only insofar as they are necessary to continue the relationship. So we have a duty to obey the law but, if we don't care about the consequences of severing our civil relationship with the state as lawgiver, then we have no such duty. If we have a duty to our spouse not to cheat on them or to provide for their well being, that duty is only motivated by the extent of our commitment to that person. Remove the commitment and where is the duty? So the real question, I think, is whether it's good or bad to maintain or sever the commitment.

That's why, I'd say, the more basic question would be the question of goodness as opposed to the question of duty. Of course, this isn't simple by any means and there may be many questions of goodness involved (the state may make it a matter of law that one provides for one's spouse and so we have more than one question of goodness before us, maintain our relationship with the state AND with our spouse -- but it always seems to me that questions of goodness come before those of duty.)

Does moral certainty have to look like certainty about the sunrise or 2+2=4? If certainty is just a state in which we find ourselves, a state in which we don't think we have a convincing reason to doubt, then what counts as convincing in the moral realm needn't look like what convinces us in other areas in which we operate. If we think certainty is something more though, then, I think, we're prompted to look for something in the claim itself (is it analytic or synthetic and if the latter, what supports it?), rather than in our relation to the claim. My thinking on this, admittedly still somewhat soft though, is that the certainty of a moral claim is grounded in the role it plays for us. A belief that it is bad to harm another (all other things being equal) can be sufficiently grounded, I think, in a belief that empathy, which guides us to feel for others, is a better trait to have than its opposite. The only outstanding question then would be something like why is it better? At this level my preliminary thinking is that it's akin to an aesthetic call, that we can think about our own subjective state and, in doing so, qualitatively assess that state and choose one possibility over another.

But admittedly this is not fully fleshed out and I am not yet convinced I've got it right! But perhaps . . .

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reshef

12/3/2013 04:32:04 am

Yes. I know. Many Wittgensteinians are uncomfortable with the notion of duty. I’m not, however. I don’t think there is a good reason to be afraid of that notion.

I also have worries about your question “which concept is more basic?” – I’m not sure I know what I could use it for.

But anyway, it seems to me that this gets us too far from the original question, which was about notions of certainty in ethics. My claim about the kind of basic absence of certainty which is weaved into our moral life can be made in terms of duty, but also in terms of value, or goodness, or whatever.

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Stuart W. Mirsky

12/3/2013 04:43:12 am

Yes, I think you're right. Moral skepticism, the notion that there can be no certain grounds for moral claims beyond what we're taught or happen to want and so forth, applies equally to duty and value concerns. It seems to me that your point about moral skepticism is well taken but that, if left unanswered (or, better, unresolved), it leads to moral collapse. Perhaps I am being too pessimistic here but I tend to look into my own experience when dealing with such questions and, when I do that, I want to know what should I do and why? It simply doesn't feel like it's enough to say I won't kill another merely because I find the idea unpleasant. What if someone has a different reaction? How do you argue with that? Or blame them for acting in a way you, yourself, find morally unsatisfactory? Moral skepticism may well be the case but, if it is, it seems to me it must be damaging to the game of moral judgment. I think the solution may just lie in thinking about certainty in a different way as I initially tried to suggest. But I have hardly worked it all out for myself so I am not sufficiently equipped to make the best case for my position in any event.

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reshef

12/3/2013 06:12:37 am

Oh, I completely agree with you that we need here to think of certainty in a different way. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing all along. The difficulty is to characterize this difference deeply enough.

Let me put it this way: I’m not so much interested in the question I think you are asking, ‘Can there be a basis for arguing with people in morality?’ and I’m not so much troubled by the possibility of moral collapse. Ethics takes care of itself. Hence, skepticism of the kind I think you imagine in ethics does not worry me so much—not because I think it is the case, but because I think it is not even a coherent option: This form of skepticism is taken from the epistemological case, and it just doesn’t fit the moral case.

Skepticism being out of place, however, does not mean that what we are left with is certainty. Once more: the model does not fit. And that means that the idea that it is either or—either certainty or skepticism—is just foreign to ethics. This is how different certainty is in the moral case. Recognizing this is what it takes to characterize the difference deeply enough.

You put it in an interesting way. "Ethics takes care of itself." Indeed, it seems to since it doesn't appear to hinge on anyone's making an ironclad case for doing this or that. Rather it seems to reflect our deep seated sensibilities (a la Hume). In the end, we just have them and while we can educate and refine them, they seem to be very much a part of the creatures we are. I guess the direction I've been heading is to see how much educating and refining one's "programmed" sensibilities can serve to plug what I take to be the reasoning gap, i.e., to show and explain how moral argument works and how we can use it to change others' opinions and, more importantly, to guide our own actions.

Although I tend to be Wittgensteinian in most things, I'm probably no t when it comes to ethics. My feeling is that ethics must somehow be arguable because it hinges on finding reasons to do things or not to do them. Reasons that are grounded entirely in one's subjective feelings or in instances of indoctrination can be no reasons at all.

But I could be wrong I suppose. Maybe reasoning about moral questions is illusory because, in an important sense, moral claims themselves are!

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reshef

12/3/2013 07:04:02 am

If I understand, you are looking for what may be characterized as “grounds.” Without proper grounds, you think, things will fall apart and become subjective and unserious. Correct me if I’m wrong. If this is indeed how you are thinking about things, you are thinking of ethics on the model of epistemology.

For myself, I don’t see much usefulness for that model insofar as ethics goes. It makes everything look out of sync. It makes the reasoning we have in ethics look unlike itself.

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Stuart W. Mirsky

12/3/2013 07:41:57 am

Yes, I'm looking for a way of determining right and wrong on a moral level that does not simply boil down to how we feel (or have been conditioned to feel) about things. It is epistemological in an important sense but not necessarily on the same model as the notion of certainty in an empirical or logical sense. Perhaps it's more akin to the hinge notion in On Certainty, where we have certain basic elements in our system of understanding things which are basic precisely because they underpin everything else and so cannot be discarded on pain of collapsing the game. And yet I continue to wrestle with an intuition that I ought to be able to give reasons for my moral judgments that will be convincing in an objective kind of way, that won't just depend on what I happen to feel.

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reshef

12/3/2013 07:35:14 pm

Look at how you put things:

“I'm looking for a way of determining right and wrong on a moral level that does not simply boil down to how we feel (or have been conditioned to feel) about things.”

You are LOOKING. You haven’t got one. – And that’s part of my point.

I may be making too much of the formulation you chose, or misinterpreting you. But my point is this: In epistemology, what is called for is a description of the ways in which we justify things. For we already have them. The form of normativity is settled; the language game is established. In ethics, on the other hand, we don’t, and the language game is not given to us. And yet, we are committed to its existence. We are committed to looking.

This sort of commitment, I want to say, characterizes something essential about ethics—the grammar of ethics. And far from boiling down to how we happen to feel, it give us a clue as to what justification and objectivity are like in ethics.

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j.

12/5/2013 02:51:20 am

could you put this point about commitment to looking in a socratic idiom?

and... in a way that distinguishes you/your W/etc. from a platonic socrates who seems (even if we are very parsimonious about what we count as 'platonic') highly committed to the idea that knowledge must be part of virtue?

(because as i imagine the difference now, maybe your formulation above is not all the way to placing that role on knowledge?)

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reshef

12/6/2013 07:03:39 am

Are you asking me to put it in a Socratic idiom, or are you asking me if would be possible?

I’m trying to understand the question. Apologies for being so slow: Are you worried that since I’m making a distinction between epistemology and ethics, and since Socrates didn’t, what I’m saying—whatever Socratic ring it might have—is ultimately not Socratic?

j.

12/7/2013 12:09:08 am

i was asking.

the commitment to looking that you describe sounds like the acknowledgment of ignorance that would appear to drive socrates' questioning. (which is of course salutary!)

but the commitment to looking that you describe also sounds like it would sit well with a view of the role of knowledge in ethics that is quite socratic/platonic. i sort of assume that this need not be the case for a wittgensteinian, perhaps because they would not understand 'how knowledge works' in the same way. so despite the other similarity with socrates, there would be a point of difference here (perhaps one that it is illuminating to spell out).

reshef

12/7/2013 10:57:29 pm

I think my Plato is filtered through a lot of Wittgenstein. I guess I like my Plato better this way.

Apart from that, there is indeed the Wittgenstein that says: “We talk and act. That is already presupposed in everything that I am saying.” (RFM, p. 321) But he doesn’t say things like that when it comes to ethics and religion. There he says things like: “In religion it must be the case that corresponding to every level of devoutness there is a form of expression that has no sense at a lower level.” (CV, 37) – The presupposition of a life, of meaningfulness, is not there. And this is reminiscent of the Tractatus (6.42) claim that “there can be no ethical propositions.” – I’m not sure if we should call it Platonic, but the mystical spirit is there.

Am I getting it all wrong?

j.

12/21/2013 09:18:23 am

i like my plato better that way too, i just gather that there are some distinct points of difference that make seeing the two (three, if you count socrates separately) for what they are easier.

i'm not sure what you're getting at with the CV passage (p. 32, in mine), but i notice that there predestination is mentioned, and a bit earlier as well (p. 30), where there is: 'it is only permissible to write like this out of the most dreadful suffering - and then it means something quite different'. putting the passages together, i think i still see something like a presupposition of life, only very broad… distances, let's say, between different peoples' lives are being acknowledged. and, let's say, being given a rather charitable interpretation, considering that they could be reconciled as part of a single pattern associated with the grammar of religion re 'levels of devoutness'. but still one which leaves a lot to be determined by how it is with the - individual - life.

reshef

12/22/2013 12:23:52 am

Is there a specific point of difference between Plato and Wittgenstein you have in mind?

About the other matter: There is life and there is life.

There is normative life—a life in the sense of meaningfulness that doesn’t break. And sometimes when this does break, or is undermined, we can say “I’ve lost my life with…” or “I don’t know my way about anymore.” Or “I’ve lost my sense of reality.” (Like the character Mel from Carver’s “What we talk about when we talk about love” who says: “There was a time that I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me.”)

However, losing one’s life with things like that, or just being insecure—and it is typically something local, so not ALL life is lost in such cases—does not mean losing life with them in another sense. Here there is a need to have something in one’s life, but not a way. I guess I would say that merely the need to have something in one’s life (even when we don’t have a way of having it) can be a kind of life with it—but life in a different sense. Descriptions of the place of things in one’s life in such cases (and these can be very rich and detailed) are descriptions of how one can’t find a life with them in the first sense. These are typically descriptions of a kind of struggle or tragedy.

Stuart W. Mirsky

12/3/2013 09:59:52 pm

You may well have it right. But it seems to me that a description of how we justify claims in ethics is as important as developing the right description of how we do it in science, in everyday life, in mathematics, in logic, in art, etc. Yes, they are different games and one paradigm does not simply roll into another but it does seem to me that more is needed than we currently have where ethics is concerned because giving reasons is such an important part of that game. Of course, we don't need such a description to engage in the game. We do that without any need for philosophizing about it. Indeed, if philosophizing were needed to do it right, we'd be in a pickle as a species. But as with other things we do, ethics, I would say, warrants some analysis and explication. The outcome of that is perhaps just a better understanding of the game and then, maybe, a little more facility in playing it. Not much else is gained except the laying aside of another puzzling factor about the kinds of creatures we are and the kind of world we have. But then philosophy doesn't promise much beyond a laying aside of one's confusions when we are successful!

The truth is I don't think Wittgenstein really helped much in the matter of clarifying ethics puzzles though he seemed to have strong ethical commitments himself. Neither his work in the Tractatus, which he tells us really addresses the ethical domain, nor his later work of investigating the things we actually do and say in order to dissolve the philosophical conundrums which seem to ties us up in knots shed much light on the ethical game, at least to my mind. I suspect you feel somewhat similarly since you have such a strong interest in the issue, even if you seem to be moving in a different direction than I am.

And yes, I am looking but haven't got it yet. Maybe I won't ever and maybe there's nothing to get in the place I'm looking. But I suppose the key is to push the inquiry as far as I can. If I come up dry, it won't be the first time and probably not the last. The point, I expect, is the inquiry even more than a solution.

By the way, I'm still getting an error message everytime I post a response here, which says I should do it again, but at least now I've caught on to THAT game and am no longer falling for the false signal!

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reshef

12/4/2013 12:00:08 am

I think that Wittgenstein IS helpful in ethics. I know he didn’t say a lot. But what he did say, combined with his ideas about what philosophy is, and what it is to have a philosophical difficulty, allow me (I hope) to do more than just chatter.

Having reasons, as you say, is an important part of ethics. But the Wittgensteinian in me worries that we might construe “reasons” here on a model that does not fit the moral case. We might be held captive by a “picture” that doesn’t help us see our real need in ethics. And I think we will remain in such captivity if we don’t make the distinction between reasoning in ethics and reasoning in epistemology deeply enough.

What I try to do, therefore, is get a better view of what we really need, and then examine what implication this has on what reasons are in ethics.

Now, one thing this examination leads me to is to an appreciation of how deeply different ethics is. For one thing, I’m not sure I would even call ethics a ‘language game’; and that’s partly, because of that absence of certainty I argue exits in ethics. It is as if ethics was a game that had no rules—that resists codification. For there to be ethics, we need to bring OURSELVES into the picture, and cannot rely on rules.

And by the way, one interesting thing that happens as a result, I think, is that (contrary to what you say) philosophizing becomes indispensible in ethics.

You say:

“Of course, we don't need such a description to engage in the game. We do that without any need for philosophizing about it. Indeed, if philosophizing were needed to do it right, we'd be in a pickle as a species.”

I agree with the logic of what you say, but not with your description of the reality in which we live: philosophizing IS needed to do ethics right, and therefore we are indeed in a pickle.

Interesting that we differ about pickles! But if philosophizing were needed to do ethics right then

1) we have very few successes in philosophy vis a vis ethics to point to;

2) there's very little unanimity among philosophers on explaining ethics in any case; and

3) mostly non-philosophers are doing it, and these mostly working without input from philosophers (so they can either do it adequately without us or they're simply lost and have been so for centuries!)

I find the approach you've adopted interesting though I am not convinced it will work any better than other efforts philosophers have tried to date. But it is certainly worth pursuing!

I've been spending the morning re-working a piece I plan for my next blog item on Serious Philosophy to be titled "Act and Intent". It's been the toughest of this series of essays I've undertaken so far, probably because I've now gotten past the easy stuff (considering the different elements that distinguish moral valuing from its relatives) and must finally wrestle with saying HOW moral valuing actually works and why it supports prescriptions of selflessness, at least in some cases.

If this effort collapses (as it has when I've tried it in the past) perhaps I will have to buy into your approach. But as of now I still think this can be worked out in such a way as to dissolve the confusions which seem to attend moral claiming in so many cases while providing a clearer path for distinguishing more effectively between right and wrong choices.

It ain't easy though, is it?

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reshef

12/4/2013 07:47:41 pm

I’m not saying that philosophy is sufficient for ethics. It is merely necessary. And by “philosophy” I don’t mean professional philosophy. Crudely speaking: if someone is seriously thinking about a moral question, they are doing philosophy. That is, if they deal with a moral problem non-philosophical, they are evading the problem. And again, I don’t mean by that that people have to use the views of professional philosophers to deal with moral questions. Therefore, I don’t think that the three factual points you make count against my claim.

I think you might be reading something into what I’m saying that is simply not there. It is not part of my project (to the extent that I even have a project) to formulate an approach that will “work.” I feel intellectually very distant from that. This is another aspect of my Wittgensteinianism: I’m not in the business of formulating theories for how to distinguish between right and wrong.

Yes, we seem to have somewhat different interests in this regard. To be frank, I'm not sure that much can be gained by the approach you're following since it seems to me that the whole point of thinking about the mechanism of moral valuation is to do it better if we can. If that's achieved merely by getting clear on what's going on, that is enough. But I don't get the sense you even want to go that far, especially when you say "It is not part of my project (to the extent that I even have a project) to formulate an approach that will 'work' I feel intellectually very distant from that."

I read your interest in moral claims, based on these exchanges, as more or less aesthetic, i.e., just examining with some appreciation the sorts of things we think about moral valuing. I really want to go further and lay bare the structure of this sort of activity.

I suppose one could define any thoughtful approach to the moral question as being philosophical as you seem to want to do but that, it seems to me, as to make the idea of "philosophy" so broad as to dispense with its technical character. Of course, we do use "philosophy" in a number of different ways and, in the sense that Hamlet advises Horatio about what is dreamt of in his philosophies, in the sense that we can speak of a politician or anyone having a philosophy, the term is certainly applicable to moral questions. But that wasn't what I meant by the term and if that's all you meant, then of course we have no disagreement. But it does seem to me that more is required when the issue is what can philosophy, the discipline of enhancing our understanding of things we do and say, offer with regard to issues like making moral claims.

By the way, I see you have a background at Tel Aviv University. FYI, I studied there for a year (Academic Year 1968-1969) with Haim Marantz who later went on to teach philosophy at Ben-Gurion, I believe. Haim gave me my first exposure to Wittgenstein, Winch, Ryle and J. J. C. Smart. I saw him again back in the nineties when he came to NYC to give a talk on ineffable knowledge at the CUNY Graduate Center. He looked quite frail, I'm afraid.

Reply

reshef

12/4/2013 10:42:36 pm

This is very helpful. It’s always a good sign when a philosophical discussion becomes metaphilosophical. So thanks.

There is a sense in which I do share your motivation to “do it better”—improving our ability to think morally. However, you might say that my interest is in getting a better idea of what “it” is in the first place. The thing is, I think, that once that becomes clear, the idea of “doing it better” is turned upside down. So you are right: there is a direction I do not want to go in. But that’s because I think it will not give me what I really need; and I don’t think I’m the only one who has this need.

I don’t think my interest in morality is aesthetic. Although I do understand how it might look that way, if one comes with certain expectations regarding what moral philosophy should give us—e.g. if one expects to be able to have a mechanism for the solution of moral problems in the same way one has a method for predicting natural events with scientific theories, or can solve mathematical questions using mathematical techniques. As I said above, such expectations in ethics often prevent us from appreciating what we really need.

I was not using the term “philosophy” in the loose way you mentioned. Rather, roughly speaking, I was using the term in the way I take Socrates to be using it: as a term for an activity of soul- or mind-searching. I take Wittgenstein to share at least a big chunk of that conception of philosophy. And by the way, it is indicative that neither Socrates nor Wittgenstein thought of philosophy as a profession, or as a technique.

I actually did not study in Tel-Aviv, but in Jerusalem. Regretfully, I don’t think I ever met Haim Marantz. (And in 1969 I was not yet even born.)

I suspect "philosophy," we will agree, has several senses and I'm not sure we're that far apart on this. Wittgenstein certainly did not think of philosophy as a profession and yet it WAS his profession, like it or not (though he often counseled his students to do other things). If philosophy is, as you suggest, an "activity of soul- or mind-searching," that, it seems to me, is enough for professional status even if nothing more is produced but words that ostensibly offer some clarification about what we are soul-searching for.

If one does philosophy for a living, in fact, how can it be thought of as anything else? That's how Wittgenstein paid the bills (once he gave up his right to great wealth) after all. It's also what he liked to do and did of course, presumably, as an avocation. For most of us, that's why we do philosophy, too, no? Even when we also depend on it to pay bills!

When solving math problems, one does math and when solving problems about how the world works, one does the relevant sciences or simply pays attention to the facts one finds as we go through life. To solve logic problems we do logic. To solve moral problems we reason in a moral way. Doing ethics, in this sense though, is just living and getting by in a world with others somewhat like ourselves. That's why I would not say one needs to do philosophy to make ethically correct choices. At best philosophy can help clarify the place or role of ethics (as ethical judgment and decision making) has in our lives and, in doing so, show us what can be done with it and what cannot. Ethics, as in the things we choose to do in relation to our fellows in different circumstances, predates Ethics as a field of philosophy, even if systematic thinking about ethics does not.

Systematic thinking about anything we do, to the extent it does NOT concern itself with discovering and explaining facts or with solving problems within particular systems (like math), generally has the look of philosophy to me. It's about understanding, as in getting clear on, certain kinds of things in the world, whether metaphysical speculation (which as Wittgensteinians I imagine we would both eschew) or things we human beings do in various circumstances (like calculating, reasoning, believing, or choosing -- the last of which, I'd say, includes the moral element which is often confused with other kinds of choosing).

On the other hand I think it's at least arguable as to whether Wittgenstein actually thought of philosophy as a technique. Certainly he often presented it, in later years, as method not doctrine and reminded us that its real job is to unpack puzzles, dissolve problems, not solve them. Although I am not among those who make a great deal out of his philosophy as therapy metaphor, there is at least some evidence in his own words that suggests that you might be wrong in supposing Wittgenstein did not subscribe to the notion of philosophy as technique.

Reply

reshef

12/5/2013 03:28:35 am

Wittgenstein got money for doing philosophy. I do too. That makes it the case that there is a profession called “philosophy” or “philosophy teacher.” But that doesn’t mean that philosophy is a profession. If someone paid me for being a son to my father, that would not make being a son into a profession. Philosophy is an activity of a certain kind. And the question is what kind.

I also don’t understand you when you say that “If philosophy is […] an ‘activity of soul- or mind-searching,’ that, it seems to me, is enough for professional status.” – There is a sense in which if someone says that they are willing to search their soul for money, or if they think they have a technique for searching their soul, then they don’t have an idea what they are talking about. These are grammatical remarks about soul-searching, and parallel grammatical remarks can be made about philosophy. And if Wittgenstein thought that philosophy was a technique then Wittgenstein was wrong.

Even calling philosophy “vocation” sounds strange and foreign to me. A teacher of mine (from the university in Jerusalem) once said that he does philosophy because he is addicted. This comes closer. Philosophy is essentially something that is FORCED on one. If it is not forced, it is not really philosophy (although it may appear like it). I would rather say that I do philosophy to save my soul, although I would not want to mislead with the religious tone. Anyway, whatever that is, that’s not a vocation.

I think you want to object to what I say when you say: “I would not say one needs to do philosophy to make ethically correct choices.” But what you say doesn’t even touch what I say, because I’m not at all talking about making right choices. This would already assume that making right choices is the point of moral philosophy. And I reject that. Again, this would distort what we really need from moral philosophy. – I don’t yet think we have found the point where we disagree. We still misunderstand each other.

The main reason I say that moral thinking is essentially philosophical is that the kind of difficulty one has both when philosophizing and when thinking about a moral problem—the kind of difficulty that a moral problem is, and the kind of difficulty that a philosophical problem is—is that of lacking in first person authority: It involves inability to speak, to express oneself, to understand one’s own problem, to find a home for one’s mind in the world. These are not technical problems.

To be frank, I’m not sure what good it does that I say all this. The only way I would be able to argue for it all is to take a philosophical problem and then another and then another, and to think about them and about the kind of problem they are, until the image of them that I’m trying to present here will become apparent. I want to move backward, and examine and re-examine the problem. I’m baffled. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t understand my own problems. I need to go backward. What you want to do, on the other hand, is to move forward. You already have an image of what we are supposed to be doing. And now you want the solution to those problems. Anyway, you clearly have a different image. To some extent, I am familiar with this image—of philosophy, of moral thinking. This is after all much closer to the how the mainstream thinks. I just don’t find the image useful. When someone is proposing to solve my philosophical and moral problems like this, I feel my problems are being ignored.

One could certainly be a father by vocation (think of foster parents who take over the duties of real parents for a fee). It's a little harder in being a son that way, though I could think of examples where someone were paid to be someone's son (though, admittedly, this is a bit more of a stretch). But being an avocation isn't a disqualifier for also being a vocation in any event.

I also would not agree that there's a grammatical issue involved here. Addiction makes more sense though. You make your living with philosophy, I don't. And yet we both seem drawn to it. We are, as it were, caught in its grip. Wittgenstein liked to say the spell needed to be broken and that that was what his approach did, it freed us up to walk away from philosophy, to no longer be spellbound by its puzzles. But I'm not sure that is such a desirable objective. I rather enjoy playing with the problems I find in philosophy, even without getting a paycheck for doing so.

I'm aware that you're not concerned with the question of right choices as I am. That's what I meant when I suggested that your interest seemed more aesthetic than practical while mine has more of a practical bent. I guess my point in that was to suggest that I think getting clear on the practical side of ethical concerns is more important than just studying and identifying the fine points and niceties of moral choosing. Of course, this will depend on perspectives and, clearly, ours are quite different, nor is mine necessarily any better than yours. We just differ as to what strikes us as interesting to do vis a vis ethics questions.

For instance, Duncan has posted an interesting piece on Singer's argument re: our obligation to give what we have to others in need. When I read it through I was struck by the fact that it seems not to answer any of what I take to be the important questions, such as why should we care about others' needs at all? Duncan assumes we do and then, with Singer, approaches this from the standpoint of how far we should go in addressing our concern for others, where can we, where must we draw the line, etc.?

But it strikes me that this isn't the real ethical question because everyone doesn't share the same assumptions about whether we should care at all or not. What's really important, it seems to me, is to answer the question of why we should care. Are there reasons which would be convincing in any sense of that term or is everything just what it is and we either care or we don't? If that is the case, then, once this is recognized, there can only be a breakdown in the game. It seems to me that to address anything less is really just to play around the edges of ethical philosophy. But I am probably in the minority here.

You write: "the kind of difficulty that a moral problem is, and the kind of difficulty that a philosophical problem is—is that of lacking in first person authority: It involves inability to speak, to express oneself, to understand one’s own problem, to find a home for one’s mind in the world. These are not technical problems."

I don't know quite what to make of this. It's as if you want to say 'I am just tongue-tied here and that's what's important for philosophy, to find and experience that state of being inarticulate about some things." I guess that's what Haim Marantz was getting at when he gave his talk about ineffable knowledge. But, frankly, that doesn't speak to me. I think the point of philosophy must be to get clear and dig deep rather than to revel in the ambiguities.

But I am aware that my view is not always consistent with that of many Wittgensteinians today. Still, I think Wittgenstein was at his best when he was generating sharp insights, not merely exploring the muddles which beset us and sometimes conceal the possibility of insight.

You say that you want to go backward whereas I seem to want to go forward. I think your characterization of my approach is not wrong. I think the only point of doing philosophy (as opposed to philosophizing in a more general sense) is to get somewhere. If there's something that seems confusing, we want to dispel the confusion. To the extent that it seems to me that moral thinking confuses us, because it seems to offer no basis for taking one kind of basic position instead of another, I'd like to rectify that. If that is "going forward," as you put it, I'm fine with that!

Reply

reshef

12/5/2013 07:30:36 pm

Stuart,

We are not talking the same philosophical language.

I very often feel that the things you say about my view COMPLETELY mischaracterize it. There is no meeting of minds here. When you talk about what is important to you, on the other hand, it is as if the question you are asking have a familiar face. But then, when I see how you propose to deal with them, I cannot recognize them anymore. No meeting of minds here either. – I don’t feel this is productive. Do you?

I feel as though I failed you.

Reply

Stuart W. Mirsky

12/5/2013 08:05:07 pm

It does seem as if we're not connecting here. But there's no reason to feel like you've "failed" me. Philosophy may have some similarities with therapy, as Wittgenstein put it, but they are hardly the same thing. In philosophy we are each responsible for our own ideas, our own thinking. If we get into muddles, only we can get out of them again. The best another can do is show his/her thinking to the other. And differences of opinions and views often look to us like others' muddles. Let's leave it at that and agree to disagree. Thanks for the discussion.